My Mother's Tongue by Amy Tan

In “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan an American writer, shares her experience growing up with the family where no one speaks perfect English, and how it affected her education and her life. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. Her mother, who speaks limited English needs Tan to be her “Translator” to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan states, “I was ashamed of her English” (2). Her mother is like a burden to her, at least in Tan’s early years. But the cultural conflict she becomes the theme of her writing and it is under this situation she wrote many novels and essays including “Mother Tongue.”

Mother Tongue is a story that describes how Amy Tan’s mother was treated unfairly because of her “broken English”. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. Her mom, who speaks “limited” English, needs Tan to be her “translator” in order to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan has felt ashamed of her mother “broken” language at first. She then contemplates her background affected her life and her study. However, she changes her thought at the end since she realizes things behind language might be more valuable than language itself sometimes. Through the various different literary devices and rhetorical strategies such as the ethos, pathos, and logos appeals, as well as a

The poem “Mothers and Daughters” is written by Pat Mora. Pat Mora is a contemporary award winning writer, who writes for children, youngsters and adults. She was born in El Paso, TX in the year 1942. She attains a title of a Hispanic writer; however, the most of her poems are in English. In her literary work, one can observe the different aspects of the immigrants’ lives such as language issues, family relationships, immigrants’ experiences and cultural differences (1187).

The purpose of Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” is to show how challenging it can be if an individual is raised by a parent who speaks “limited English” (36) as Tan’s mother does, partially because it can result in people being judged poorly by others. As Tan’s primary care giver, her mother was a significant part of her childhood, and she has a strong influence over Tan’s writing style. Being raised by her mother taught her that one’s perception of the world is heavily based upon the language spoken at home. Alternately, people’s perceptions of one another are based largely on the language used.

English is an invisible gate. Immigrants are the outsiders. And native speakers are the gatekeepers. Whether the gate is wide open to welcome the broken English speakers depends on their perceptions. Sadly, most of the times, the gate is shut tight, like the case of Tan’s mother as she discusses in her essay, "the mother tongue." People treat her mother with attitudes because of her improper English before they get to know her. Tan sympathizes for her mother as well as other immigrants. Tan, once embarrassed by her mother, now begins her writing journal through a brand-new kaleidoscope. She sees the beauty behind the "broken" English, even though it is different. Tan combines repetition, cause and effect, and exemplification to emphasize

Identity as the “condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is; the qualities, beliefs, etc., that distinguish or identify a person or thing” (Dictionary.com). This could refer to name, gender, sexual orientation, one’s profession, race, ethnicity, and the list stretches beyond. Is it birth, by choice, or by evolution of events? In Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Teach Yourself Italian”, and Zadie Smith’s “Speaking in Tongues”, each author writes about their experiences with languages and all have lived through different events which has led them to their definitions of identity. What they all have in common is that they define identity not as something defined by birth, by determined by

In the beginning of the book, an odd scene was described. A mother was rummaging through the garbage, and this was described from the perspective of someone else. This person is the mother’s daughter. She is sitting in a taxi on her way to a party up the block when she lays eyes upon her mother. The author describes the daughters reaction by saying, “I slid down in my seat and asked the driver to turn around and take me home”(Walls 3). The daughter is literally ashamed of her homeless mother. This reaction is appaling to someone who is not in the daughters shoes. “After ducking down in my taxi so my mom would not see me, I hated myself - hated my antiques, my clothes, and my apartment” (Walls 3). Obviously, she regrets the feeling of embarrassment

The Essay written by Amy Tan titled 'Mother Tongue' concludes with her saying, 'I knew I had succeeded where I counted when my mother finished my book and gave her understandable verdict' (39). The essay focuses on the prejudices of Amy and her mother. All her life, Amy's mother has been looked down upon due to the fact that she did not speak proper English. Amy defends her mother's 'Broken' English by the fact that she is Chinese and that the 'Simple' English spoken in her family 'Has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk' (36). Little did she know that she was actually speaking more than one type of English. Amy Tan was successful in providing resourceful

The Language of our Time Language, spoken or written, is a form of human communication consisting of the use of words in a conventional and structured way. The language of our birth, the language of everyone’s first words, creates a powerful bond and shapes an individual’s perception of the world. And yet, only few people truly understand the effects a language can have on others or the extent a language can manipulate people through their state of mind. Language can help define the identity of an individual. It shapes a person’s mind based on their past and helps people into the future.

An American writer of Chicana cultural theory, Gloria Anzaldúa, in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” asserts that language is intertwined with identity. She supports her claim by first using an allegory with imagery of a dentist visit in order to showcase the struggle of having a “unconventional” accent, then uses emotional appeal to reveal the Chicanx community’s insecurities about their language in order for the audience to have a personal understanding of their struggles, and finally utilizes a simile as a call to action for the Chicanx community to unite and take pride in their culture. Anzaldúa’s purpose is to emphasize how people should not be ashamed of their native tongue in order to encourage people to take pride in their cultural identity.

In 1990 Amy Tan released “Mother Tongue”, an essay of Tan’s personal view and history of her mother’s struggles as a Chinese immigrant with “limited English” (Tan 77). The culture and people around her mother in America were not accepting of her English skills, or lack thereof. She was viewed as unintelligent, inferior, and treated less courteously. Tan is a critically acclaimed author following her best-selling novel The Joy Luck Club released a year earlier in 1989. Tan’s perception of her mother is entirely different than what the population around her sees. She views her mother’s English as a “language of intimacy, a different sort of English” (Tan 77). However, in order to persuade her audience, she cannot use her background as a successful

I have selected author Amy tan for this assignment. I have attracted by her after I read the story called “Mother Tongue”. In this essay Tan discussed about the many ways in which the language that she was trained affected her life. Similarly, I came from a bilingual home, which is connected to her life and this story. I and my parents were immigrated from Srilanka to Canada. My parent does not speak English and I am not fluent in English as the student who was born in here. Since my life relates to Amy’s life, I chose her for this assignment.

Tan and her mother came out of different cultural and linguistic background, by which shaped their identities differently in terms of fundamental perceptions, personalities, and conceptually believes; no common language is shared between them other than English, which makes their daily communication fairly awkward. For this reason, Tan, who was born in the US and spoke English as mother language, could not adapt her mother well in the early stage and was even racist to her mother too, as Tan acknowledged ‘I was ashamed of her English’ and ‘she expressed them imperfectly, her thoughts were imperfect.’ In fact, these of Tan’s early thoughts definitely indicates to what extent Tan identified herself as an American over Chinese, in line with the

Throughout the whole passage, our author, Amy Tan didn’t mention any relationship she had with her home language Chinese although, in the biography, Amy Tan is said to be a bilingual fluent speaking both English and Chinese but from the short story, “Mother Tongue” Amy said she was brought up speaking English. More so, her mother also speaks English with her though, broken. Her lack of exposure to Chinese probably make her a broken Chinese speaker but, writing in English still doesn’t make her feel like a English speaking person rather,she feels more like a Chinese

In Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” she reminds us that many Americans struggle with the everyday judgement of non-perfect English. Tan shares the story of growing up with her mother a Chinese-American who spoke English that was referred to as broken, damaged or limited. Tan admits to the time of weakness in her mother’s life as she asked her doctor speak on the phone, to business men and doctors so they could properly understand her. She believes that during her childhood going to an American school and still hearing her mother’s way of English has given her a large sense of many types of English which has overall helped with her career as a writer.